There was no way he could let Julius take her. Such a thing wouldn’t save her life. The bastard would kill her in a heartbeat … but not right at this moment, when she was his only ticket out of here.
Camden silently wished for his mate to wake. Julius might have her at his mercy now, but only because she was out cold. An aware Aspen was a dangerous Aspen.
“You won’t walk away from here, Julius,” Camden said, feigning calm.
The tiger snickered. “Sure I will. She dies if I don’t.”
“She’ll die if you do.”
“But not straight away. Which means you’ll have time to find and save her.”
Like Camden would believe the man would allow her to live for longer than necessary, considering all the trouble Julius had gone through to gain possession of her. “You allowed yourself to get caught,” Camden understood.
Julius smirked, all arrogance. “Of course I did. I knew you’d come question me.”
Julius could never resist boasting. Which was helpful right now, because Camden needed to keep him distracted long enough for his mate to wake. “You wanted to pull me away from Aspen. All that shit about Grant working with Wayland was just that. Shit.”
“I needed you all to be focused on someone else for a little while. I needed you to give your girl here some time alone so I could slip away and grab her. And it worked. When I saw all your pride mates heading off earlier this morning, I decided this would be a good day to act. I saw that Wayland person hanging around, too.”
“Then you had to know there was a chance he’d get to her before you did and that she’d be dead by the time you got there.”
Julius shrugged. “I figured he’d wait until he had an audience—that being you—before he killed her. It didn’t really matter to me either way. You’d have come for her whether she was dead or alive. You wouldn’t have wanted her body in my possession. Not when you know I’m not so fussed if a woman’s got a pulse when I take her.”
The sick fuck licked the side of her face, and it took everything Camden had not to lunge at him. His tiger snarled, his muscles tense, readying himself to pounce.
“Really, boy, it’s your fault I have her,” said Julius. “If you’d done what I wanted and headed home weeks ago, I’d have settled for just killing you. I wouldn’t have needed to come up with the plan to take your girl to your old territory in order to lure you there.”
Camden felt his jaw tighten. “It was you who vandalized the graves and burned down the cabin.”
“I didn’t vandalize your mama’s grave. Someone else did that. Probably that Wayland person you mentioned. I just needed to draw you back home, boy. Needed you to reconnect with your old pride. Your life needs to end exactly where it began. I have to finish what my sister started.”
“Why?” What could possibly have set him off?
Something flickered in Julius’s usual dead eyes. “Did you ever read her letters? She wrote a bunch of them to your father. I read them not so long ago. Boy, she hated you.”
That wasn’t fresh news. She’d said the words to Camden many times, until they’d ceased to have any meaning or impact on him.
“All she’d wanted was that fuck-headed father of yours to love her. Oh, he was the perfect mate when she was pregnant. Doted on her. Gave her whatever she wanted. Waited on her day and night. But then you were born, and he was all about you. She’d served her purpose. She’d given him the kid he couldn’t have with that infertile woman, Judith. That was all he’d wanted from Esme. A surrogate. Well he got one.”
There was really no sense in telling Julius that things hadn’t happened that way. The man wasn’t going to hear it—he had it in his head that Esme was the victim. Someone had put that in his head. “Who gave you the letters?” He’d spoken about an associate from the pride, hadn’t he? Camden’s instincts pricked at him. “Gustavo?”
Julius’s lips curled. “Very good.”
“He used you.” Did the man really not see it? “You spun me a tale earlier when you talked of a little helper. Grant wasn’t one. But you? Yeah, you were one. Gustavo turned you into his. He manipulated you. He hates that his mate can’t let Dirk go.”
“He does. Judith kept track of you over the years, you know. She never told her mate. She hid it. Probably because she knew he wouldn’t like it. When he found out and confronted her, she said it was what your daddy would have wanted.” Julius paused. “Yeah, I knew Gustavo was using me to get rid of you. That’s why I told Judith what he’d been doing.”